Bethesda has done a fantastic job supporting the Switch since it was released. So far, the company has been able to bring across multiple big-name titles - all of which have been positively received. As you might recall, the first of the lot was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in 2017.

The game's success led to the reveal The Elder Scrolls Legends was also on the way to Nintendo's platform. This has since raised questions about the chances of the massive multiplayer experience Elder Scrolls Online releasing on the Switch. Speaking to GameSpot at this year's PAX Australia, ZeniMax Online Studios' Game Director Matt Firor said it wasn't going to happen due to the game's large file size, which takes up about 75 GB:

We have thought about Switch but ESO is an enormous game, and it just will not work... I would love for it to because I love Switch. It is one of the largest games ever made, and it just will not fit on Switch.

As GameSpot point points out, NBA 2K19 is just under 32 GB and is one of the biggest games on the system right now. In contrast, ESO is more than double this size. It's a possibility the internal storage limitations of the Switch and game card sizes are deterring companies from releasing larger MMO-like experiences on the platform.

Are you disappointed to hear ESO won't be making the Switch? Tell us below.

When he’s not paying off a loan to Tom Nook, Liam likes to report on the latest Nintendo news and admire his library of video games. His favourite Nintendo character used to be a guitar-playing dog, but nowadays he prefers to hang out with Judd the cat.

Nope, not disappointed in the slightest. I have absolutely no interest in MMORPGs.

Besides, a major aspect of the Switch's appeal is the fact that it's portable and you can play anywhere. Persistent online games aren't really care good match IMO.

Now, remastered releases of Fallout 3 and New Vegas, Fallout 4 (if it's possible)... Those would be interesting to me. So would remakes of Morrowind and Oblivion using the Skyrim engine, but those would cost a lot more to make.

It may not fit on the internal system memory or current 32GB game cards, but it will fit on my 400GB microSDXC card. Digital download only? I thought Nintendo was going to make 64GB game cards available to developers?

I'd rather have ports of Oblivion/Morrowind. Don't get me wrong, an MMO on the Switch would be cool. I'd just prefer FF14. ESO isn't a bad game, but it didn't really feel enough like an Elder Scrolls game. Plus the game was really big when I played it on Steam, I can only imagine the file size nowadays.

I like a good MMO as much as the next person and wouldn't dislike ESO coming to the Switch by any means, but wouldn't a MMO eliminate the "play anywhere" perk? Maybe it could be pulled off in Japan....

I mean if they put the main operators on a 32GB cartridge and bundled it with a generic 128GB micro sd card (where you download the rest of the game), I'm sure most people would shell out an extra $20 for the game without a second thought

Wouldn't compression bring the file size down tremendously? Like I know they're not Nintendo with compression, but as we've seen with DOOM, downscaling the graphics and audio would go a long way in decreasing its size.

Maybe they should try a 64 GB cart then? Yeah, I know they won't because of costs. But this seems more like an improbable dilemma. Not impossible.

@Tyranexxit wouldn't necessarily kill the "play anywhere" aspect, there are a buttload of places like coffee shops, some fast food, book stores and many other places with free wifi, many don't even require a purchase, you could still stop off somewhere, or (not the best idea) you could use your cellphone as a hotspot, but inherently, the nature of the game kind of restricts you from true portability anyway even if you had 100% autonomy somehow, an MMO is really something you have to set down and really put your time into and moving around every few minutes, getting up, going to wherever, ect would prove too tedious, so even on a portable, an MMO, (any MMO) would not be viable for portable playtime

What would be awesome would be if you buy the majority of the game on a microSD card. Then when you insert card into switch it downloads a small file to system memory to link the game to the Ninty account and do whatever else it needs to do and viola. You have your game and it’s the equivalent of a download running off microSD.

I hope nobody on the team wears "one of the largest games ever made" as a badge of honor. All things considered, it is ridiculous how a PC install of ESO takes up around 90GB.

Briefly mulling over the options available, I can say with a good amount of certainty that a Switch release could fit snugly on a 32GB cartridge with the player experience remaining virtually unchanged.

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This is all a rather thin excuse to cover up that:

[1] Selling an extra game-specific subscription to Nintendo Online subscribers would be hard.

[2] Updates would likely take up massive space, so now subscribers would need crazy big SD cards as well.

[3] Traditional MMOs have historically performed poorly on consoles, and there's rather little reason to gamble on things having changed.

[4] Profit margins on 32GB cartridges is likely not good, and the 64GB carts arriving next year probably aren't better in that regard.

[5] Optimising the game for Switch's chipset, to assure proper online cross-play, would be A NIGHTMARE, and with the project already looking unlikely to be profitable considering [1] through [4]... why would they go through with that?

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But hey, these don't sound good in PR-talk. They sound like things players and press would want to argue with you. It's better to make a false statement that seems reasonable to the unknowing, risking to look incompetent in the eyes of those that probably know your true motivations anyway.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is 99GB on PS4 but it comes on 2 discs so a download is not needed. Probably not coming to Switch. Will developers use the new 64GB carts even if Nintendo actually release them. Too costly.

@Alucard83@BigKing Storage is becoming just as much a problem on PS4. RDR2 and CoD take up 200GB together. I think the real problem is optimization, and that's an industry-wide issue, especially with 3rd parties. Bethesda in particular is notorious for their poor optimization. ESO isn't too big for Switch, it's just not worth their time and money to port it when the sales are likely to be low. When was the last time any MMO did well on console?

To be fair, it's not uncommon for Switch ports to have noticeably smaller file sizes than PlayBox ones, thanks to both the lower resolution assets required and [correct me if I'm wrong, but] the higher potential of data compression since flash memory read speeds comfortably exceed those of reported PS4 BD ones.

If anything, I kinda suspect it's the UPDATE sizes that may leave the developers doubtful in the context of a hybrid console many use portably. After all, if PS4 updates seem to be almost a quarter of the game's total size (or more - I think I've seen numbers like 25-29 Gb at times), even a proportionally smaller piece could present an occasional challenge on the go, especially since MMOs tend to keep the user stuck on the front porch until updated. I've personally experienced this annoyance with stuff like Fortnite and Paladins, especially when their updates glitch up and report "corrupted data", making you redownload the full several gigabytes anew - and from what I've read, it happens on other platforms as well. I also remember when I couldn't access ESO on PS4 for over a month before another update seemingly fixed things - the thing just wouldn't connect to the server! And word-of-mouth remedies in the userbase revolved around "try to wipe and reinstall the game", too. Alas, it's not a problem with Switch storage (especially since the system is future-proofed for VERY spacious memory cards in the long term) but rather a problem with commonly available mobile internet speeds and data plans.

Then again, come to think of it, could it leave a higher possibility of ESO on Switch in Japan? Granted, if the game has a market slice there, Bethesda could just as easily make use of the budding trend and have the whole deal streamed like PSO2.

As for me, it's certainly a bummer since the PS4 version I already have to stream is additionally impaired by the control scheme (the usual "triggers are on the rear touchpad and button remapping is for wimps" syndrome that has recently muddled even my long-awaited Horizon Zero Dawn experience among others :V ). Guess I'll have to invest in the Steam version despite the performance challenges it may face on my GPDW1... and the fact that there, it WILL be 75-80 Gb like on PS4 and the mandatory occasional updates WILL be the same 20+ Gb as well. ¯(ツ)/¯

@Darth_Goomba Japan disagrees with Phantasy Star Online 2. I'm all about RPGs and MMORPGs. The dream for me would be to have a WoW scale MMO on the switch and play it anywhere with my phone's data. I'd be so happy.

I get it. I think they could do digital only if they wanted but they would have to put a lot into the marketing so people would know and then they would have to field complaints from the physical only people.

Not surprising. The X1X version is nearly 100GB with Summersett. Not sure what the non-X version is without the 4k textures, but there's no way this game comes in at under 75GB and that's just not going to fly for Switch. Add in that it's an always-online game, and it would be such a wasted effort.

@Trajan I've played over a hundred hours of Splatoon 2 handheld. Works great. In some ways it makes being a charger main easier

Yeah this game has a ridiculous amount of DLC, I would need a new sd card just for this game. The game itself is solid, but only if you have all the content otherwise you always feel like you are missing out on something. I made a Khajiit Thief and was disappointed to find out that you had to buy the Thieves Guild separately.

Are they stupid? Obviously the solution is to partner with a company that makes SDHC cards and bundle it with the game with the DLC preloaded. Obviously they just don't want the game on the system because to me that's a dumb excuse.

I don't understand why this is an issue. You'd be out of your mind to purchase a physical copy of an MMORPG, or any always-online game anyway. I should hope most people who have a Switch and are serious about gaming (serious enough to pick up ESO) would already have a large enough mSD installed.

I was disappointed (and really annoyed) when I saw that a TES online game was going to be released, I haven't tried it yet and I don't think I ever will, and I have also been disappointed by Nintendo for the subscription on Switch, so I am not disappointed about not being able to play a online multiplayer game that I don't want to be online multiplayer on a console that has been the worst disappointment in gaming for me. Those two things were already a disappointment. In that sense they would be the perfect match, it feels just weird that this port is not going to be made from that point of view.

@jhewitt3476: I had a decent reply constructed last night, but then the site decided to start throwing me timeout issues. Anyway....

Maybe "eliminate" wasn't the right word for it, but I still don't think the Switch is the best fit for a MMO. As you said, a MMO is a time investment - something that is not suited to all lifestyles. Plus, while "play anywhere" wouldn't entirely be unfeasible, it would have to be rephrased as "anywhere with a reliable internet connection" in this case.

Could I pull this off at my home? Yes. On public WiFi? That would depend on the place and their traffic at the time; not all of my experiences have been great. At my parents' house on the weekend with a tied-up, oversold line that's supposed to deliver 3MB (and they can't go higher) and almost non-existent cell phone service (trees)? I'd have more headaches than playtime where a MMO is involved.

@NEStalgia Nice man. Ive only been docked since Dec or Jan when I finally got a pro controller and figured out motion.

Before I kept my switch in a mumba case and used a dock extension cable. And I had hori pad as controllers. Used them the other day for the turbo function for T-elos affinity chart (jumping) and realized it has horrible input lag now.

I only use dualies now though. Tried using the new Splat dualies this splatfest and got wrecked. I'll stick with dapples.

We look at whether it can be done, not if it should be done. Bethesda looks at whether it can make money, not if it should be done. Bethesda knows this would flop on Switch, even though some people have asked for it. Previous titles would be better options (Elder Scrolls and Fallout), but again, there's no money in it.

As this is an MMORPG, it has to have cross play. The game would require lots of compression and that would result in a gimped version on the Switch that wont be nearly as good as the other versions, effectively handicapping all potential Switch versions.

From my understanding of Bethesda's ethics around this, its a big no no... They where even willing to ditch Legends on the PS4 because of Sony's stance on cross-play before they changed it.

@BigKing It's not stopping games from being made for Switch either, but it does make a convenient excuse because it shifts the blame from the developer's poor optimization to Nintendo's lack of internal storage. This game is poorly optimized on PC, they would never even consider putting in the work to make it happen on Switch. Do you really think that if Switch had a 500GB internal drive it would change that? No, I think they'd have a different excuse: not right for Switch's market, system isn't powerful enough, downgrading the graphics would hurt the integrity of the product we want to sell, etc. Take your pick. All of them are nice ways of saying the time and money to port the game and properly optimize it aren't worth the risk of a low return on that investment. Storage isn't the issue here.

Lest forget if you don't have wifi or hotspot it makes this game worthless as well. That's what is missed. I rather have a larger cartridge to hold the game offline instead. Not all online are cracked up to be as they say they are.

@retro_player_22 i would almost litterally kill for a PSO on the switch.....favorite times playing a mmo was PSO on the gamecube....i hunted down the lan adapter for 2 weeks for the gamecube just to play that game